Depressed People Eat More Chocolate

You might eat chocolate because, well, you think it tastes
darn good. But a new study, which finds a connection between eating chocolate
and being depressed, raises questions about why people turn to the tasty treat.

The results show that people who score high on a screening
test for depression
consume more chocolate
than those who aren't considered depressed.

The connection to mood appears to be specific to chocolate —
there was no association between depression and other food components that
might affect mood, such as caffeine, fat, carbohydrates and energy intake (all
contained in chocolate), the researchers say.

"Our study confirms long-held suspicions that eating
chocolate is something that people do when they are feeling down," study
researcher Beatrice Golomb, a professor at the University of California, San
Diego School of Medicine, said in a statement.

However, the study only points out that there is a link, and
cannot explain why. Since the participants were not followed over time, the
researchers don't know whether eating chocolate ameliorates or amplifies a sad
mood. The possibilities are many — from using chocolate as a sort of natural Prozac
to the idea that chocolate might have some role in driving depression.

The results will be published April 26 in Archives of Internal Medicine, a journal
of the American Medical Association.

More depressed, more
chocolate

While eating chocolate is commonly thought to lead to
changes in mood, few studies have actually looked to see whether there really
is an association.

The current study included around 930 people, about 70
percent men and 30 percent women, who were not taking antidepressants. The
participants completed a depression screening survey and answered questions
related to their chocolate consumption (The subjects were actually being
screened to take part in a separate study looking at ways to lower cholesterol
levels).

Those with scores that indicated they were possibly
depressed ate an average of 8.4 one-ounce servings of chocolate per month, while
those with lower scores ate an average of 5.4 servings per month. And those
with the highest scores, possibly an indication of major depression, ate an
average of 11.8 servings per month. For comparison, a Hershey's chocolate bar
is 1.55 ounces.

An antidepressant?

Several hypotheses might explain the results, but all are
speculative at this point.

If chocolate really does boost mood, people who
are depressed might eat chocolate as a self-treatment for their depression.
Chocolate does contain ingredients that can act as stimulants, which are known
to elevate mood. However, these ingredients are present at quite low
concentrations, which some feel are too
low to cause an effect. Also, chocolate ingredients may boost production of
"pleasure hormones" such as serotonin.

Ingredients in chocolate could cause
inflammation in the body, which might be responsible for both chocolate
cravings and depression.

While chocolate itself might cause a mood boost,
certain other ingredients added to chocolate during production, such as artificial
trans fats, could worsen mood and so balance out or even reverse the mood
benefits, the researcher say.

Future studies are needed to determine how chocolate affects
mood, and whether or not chocolate directly influences depression.

Rachael Rettner

Rachael has been with Live Science since 2010. She has a masters degree in journalism from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in molecular biology and a Master of Science in biology from the University of California, San Diego.